Karnataka (Belagavi): The Green activists finally succeeded to stop the illegal construction works that were being carried out at the vaccine depot in Belagavi city by the Belagavi Smart city limited. The Karnataka high court has ordered the Smart city ltd. to maintain the status quo and not to cut any tree from the depot.
The Vaccine Depot is spread over about 156 acres of land and has thousands of trees of over 300 varieties. It is also home to various medicinal plants and peacocks, rabbits, wild cats, and many verities of birds. The area earned the name vaccine depot as the Britishers had built some structure to manufacture the vaccine for chickenpox and rabies here.
Belagavi is the city selected in the first twenty cities for the central government’s ambitious Smart City project. When the government had asked suggestions from the citizens of Belagavi, People had suggested developing the Vaccine depot as a heritage part, restoration of fort and moat, and various other works. But making alters in the idea suggested by the people, the smart city officials under the pressure of local politicians had envisaged plans to develop the Amphitheatre, Village of India art gallery, Aero museum by taking out cement construction. Some hundreds of trees were also removed for the work. The citizens had kept opposing the works from time to time but the smart city kept neglecting the public plea.
A group under the banner of ‘Save Vaccine Depot’ and under the leadership of social worker Rajeev Topannavar had filed Public Interest Litigation(PIL) on July 5 and succeeded to get the Status Quo on the work in the very first hearing. This has turned a big setback to Belagavi Smart City Ltd. which planned various works at the depot.
